A Movement in the Mirror:American Studies in the 1970s

by Lisa Guernsey

CHAPTER ONE: THE MOVEMENT

2. The Postmodern Stroke

These reports of the "death" of humanist scholarship were (and still
are) hardly unique to the movement of American Studies and in fact may still
be in the process of imploding the Academy in general. Critics today describe this doubt and questioning of humanism and modernity as a
fundamental intellectual stroke of the postmodern age; the search for knowledge
has turned from a quest for the objective "truth"--or at least consensus
about this truth--to an interminable disbelief in the existence of this truth,
a delegitimation of anything that tries to call itself objective, and a
predilection for dissensus. The death of humanism has been the subject
of often anxious discussion for nearly 20 years, and has sent a shiver down
the spine of any traditionally operating educational institution. If there
is no objective truth, what should be taught? If there is no body of knowledge
that provides the most fundamental answers to life's questions, what is the
role of the professor?13

Zooming in toward a particular field--in this case, the American Studies
movement--the questions hold even more urgency. American Studies provides
an interesting case-study of postmodernism's symptoms and effects. Jean-Francois
Lyotard's definition of postmodernism--"incredulity toward
metanarratives"14--encapsulizes
American Studies scholars' distrust of the myth-symbol approach. Suddenly
faced with not just one but innumerable narratives about the history and
culture of America, most American Studies scholars are now unable (and unwilling)
to hold down one method of inquiry, and some, as a result, grope blindly
toward methods and theories too numerous to count. The myth-symbol approach
is still considered by many to possess several fulfilling
advantages,15 but its humanistic,
"essence"-finding method of inquiry has now been sideswiped by a new,
invigorating, and exasperating postmodern realization that, in the face of
so much diversity and so many differing perspectives, that "essence" just
might not be there.16